Help with the HC7 & editing.

Hello - hoping someone can help me out - just bought the Sony HC7 - i have adobe premier pro 1.5 which doesn't like the HDV format and just makes a mess of the DV output. So i need new editing stuff. My silly side tells me to rush out and spend 700 plus pounds on Adobe Premier Pro 2.0 (upgrading not an option) or buy an mac + final cut. My brain (and bank manager) is telling me that realistically i'm going to do two underwater films this year (Norway & Djibouti) so spending that much on the software after spending so much on camera / housing isn't actually that sensible.

Bare with me, i have a point.

Can someone advise between Sony Vegas / Pinnacle / Something else less than 100 pounds for me? Must do HDV obviously.

My 9-5 brain (i work for a company that makes professional broadcasting equipment) says i should hold out on spending money on HD stuff until the details have been worked out. What's everyone thinking on this?

Chrispie

Hello - hoping someone can help me out - just bought the Sony HC7 - i have adobe premier pro 1.5 which doesn't like the HDV format and just makes a mess of the DV output. So i need new editing stuff. My silly side tells me to rush out and spend 700 plus pounds on Adobe Premier Pro 2.0 (upgrading not an option) or buy an mac + final cut. My brain (and bank manager) is telling me that realistically i'm going to do two underwater films this year (Norway & Djibouti) so spending that much on the software after spending so much on camera / housing isn't actually that sensible.

 

Bare with me, i have a point.

 

Can someone advise between Sony Vegas / Pinnacle / Something else less than 100 pounds for me? Must do HDV obviously.

 

My 9-5 brain (i work for a company that makes professional broadcasting equipment) says i should hold out on spending money on HD stuff until the details have been worked out. What's everyone thinking on this?

 

Chrispie

I highly recommend SONY's NLE apps - if cost is a factor - look at SONY Vegas Studio Platinum Edition which has alot of the same features as Vegas 7 ($530.00 Approx USD), but much less in price ($130.00 USD). I have begun to see the downsides of apps like FCP (More marketing spin than anything else - locked in to one app), PPro is a resource hog - especially when field editing on a laptop and doesn't have very good memory management, Edius - I just can't wrap my head around this app no matter how hard I have tried, and Avid.. well, I have heard it termed AVOID...

I have found SONY's app, especialy on a halfway decent desktop or laptop, does extremely well, and it will utilize all the cores you have on your editing machine - and that even includes the quad cores.

You can download a 30 day trial that is fully functional to see how you like the product. I use to swear by Adobe's products - lately I have begun to swear AT THEM...

Adobe's integration concept looks good on paper - as long as you have a need for ALL the products in the suite, but if you are doing mainly straight cuts and dissolves, I would recommend SONY's products and take the savings and apply it to another trip.

You can download a 30 day trial that is fully functional to see how you like the product. I use to swear by Adobe's products - lately I have begun to swear AT THEM...

Without being too much of a dumb blond - where can i do this? no luck on the sony website - i just go round and round!

And thanks - want to help out with picking my housing too?!

For HDV the starting point with Sony is the Vegas Movie Studio + DVD Platinum edition. Free trial is here.

Don't underestimate computer requirements for working with HDV. You'll really benefit from a powerful machine.

Ahh - i found it! Thanks again.

I have begun to see the downsides of apps like FCP (More marketing spin than anything else - locked in to one app)

Curious why do you think it is just marketing spin?

Hello - hoping someone can help me out - just bought the Sony HC7 - i have adobe premier pro 1.5 which doesn't like the HDV format and just makes a mess of the DV output. So i need new editing stuff. My silly side tells me to rush out and spend 700 plus pounds on Adobe Premier Pro 2.0 (upgrading not an option) or buy an mac + final cut. My brain (and bank manager) is telling me that realistically i'm going to do two underwater films this year (Norway & Djibouti) so spending that much on the software after spending so much on camera / housing isn't actually that sensible.

 

Bare with me, i have a point.

 

Can someone advise between Sony Vegas / Pinnacle / Something else less than 100 pounds for me? Must do HDV obviously.

 

My 9-5 brain (i work for a company that makes professional broadcasting equipment) says i should hold out on spending money on HD stuff until the details have been worked out. What's everyone thinking on this?

 

Chrispie

Chrispie, wait a sec... Have you downloaded the Premiere Pro 1.5.1 update/ plug-in that allows HDV editing?

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/pro...latform=windows

I'm currently editing HC7 HDV footage on Premiere Pro 2, but previously was using the 1.5.1 with that update and don't recall any problems editing my HC7 HDV clips.

Edit: actually the only problem I had was my old PC was not up to snuff for editing HDV...

Chrispie, wait a sec... Have you downloaded the Premiere Pro 1.5.1 update/ plug-in that allows HDV editing?

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/pro...latform=windows

 

I'm currently editing HC7 HDV footage on Premiere Pro 2, but previously was using the 1.5.1 with that update and don't recall any problems editing my HC7 HDV clips.

 

Edit: actually the only problem I had was my old PC was not up to snuff for editing HDV...

Right, PPro 1.51 converts HDV footage to the Cineform intermediate codec (avi wrapper). PPro 2.0 can handle m2t native. I also use the cineform codec (aspect HD) with PPro 2.0, but need to try using native to see what if any difference there is..

Hi again,

OK - so i downloaded Sony Vegas Platinum edition - quick question before i drop kick my laptop into the rain... How do you trim clips? And how do you split clips?

No haven't downloaded the patch for 1.5 PPro - i'll give that a try this evening...

Thanks,

Chrispie

There are a lot of different ways to do the same function. Below is how I do it.

Drop the clip into the timeline.

To trim, mouse over the left edge of the clip and move right to trim beginning point. Mouse over the right edge of the clip and move left to trim end point.

To split, move the cursor to exact split point you want, then I use the "edit" pulldown menu, click menu item "split". I believe you can also click "s" or "crtl s" instead of using the menu.

There are a lot of different ways to do the same function. Below is how I do it.

 

Drop the clip into the timeline.

 

To trim, mouse over the left edge of the clip and move right to trim beginning point. Mouse over the right edge of the clip and move left to trim end point.

To split, move the cursor to exact split point you want, then I use the "edit" pulldown menu, click menu item "split". I believe you can also click "s" or "crtl s" instead of using the menu.

Whoever you are - i like you. Thanks. My house will be explitive free this evening. I'll print this off right now.

You're welcome. To clarify my instructions, when you trim, after you mouse over the edge, click and hold the left mouse button while you move.

The "s" key will split, I just tested it.

Curious why do you think it is just marketing spin?

I've worked with FCP and find that to do many things you have to jump through alot of hoops (read - inefficient workflow). I find the marketing hype around FCP plays upon peoples ideas that it will somehow make them more professional by using it. You're locked into an application that for most, is unintuitive to work with. I found it not so much due to having worked with PPro for so long and the interface was similar. Unless one is editing long form projects, I find FCP bloated overkill, and yet up until PPro CS3, you either edited in AVID (I've heard it termed AVOID) or FCP - that was it. Editing long form in Vegas is simple and straighforward - ask shooters here like Nick Hope - a regular Vegas user both here and on the Vegas Forums (Hi Nick)

Both FCP and Avid are resource intensive apps and I have read and experienced myself numerous crashes of both apps on the MAC platform. Mac hardware is overpriced. One can field edit on a standard Dell Laptop with dual core processors and 2GB of RAM and purchase Vegas 7 and still spend less than a Macbook Pro. And then one has to pay out the nose for the FCP Suite because that is the only way to obtain it. Again, no freedom of choice.

SONY Vegas just works. Once you get use to it's workflow, editing becomes fast and intuitive. Used in conjunction with Cinescore and Sound Forge, these three apps do more for me than any other set of apps out there. Since I ascribe to the Solo VJ Paradigm - where one conceives, shoots, is on camera talent, narrates, edits and renders out to multiple sources - efficiency is key.

I don't work in AE, and edit using cuts and dissolves 99.9% of the time. Vegas' support for multiple video formats on the same timeline, nested projects, etc. works very well.

Is it perfect? No.

But I think it comes much closer than any other offerings for my style of shooting (Freelance Video Journalism) - and its hardware requirements are more liberal and not hardware dependent - you don't need a dedicated video card to run Vegas on a laptop (You can't run FCP on a macbook - no dedicated video card). Vegas runs on AMD or Intel, Single, Dual or Quad core, and will utilize all cores as high as 99% utilization - I haven't seen any of the other current apps do that. It runs on Win2K (DV only), XP Pro 32 and 64bit and actually sees DVD burners on XP 64 bit which PPro nor Encore will do. You can't even install Avid on XP 64 bit - very backward thinking. The Vegas user community is some of the friendliest and helpful out there.

I was a vocal Adobe evangelist, until I kept running into horridly long renders and out of memory error messages (Running either XP Pro 32 bit or XP 64 bit with 4GB RAM with AMD Dual core processor). I have yet to experience any major issues with Vegas. The only gripe I've heard is that Vegas doesn't support 10 bit color space, but since no one utilizes it that I know of, I think it's a moot point until one is needing 10bit color space for editing. None of the current crop of video cams most are using (miniDV or HDV) even shoot in that color space.

A native 64 bit version of Vegas is slated for release late this year - that is a major coup. The "A Team" (Adobe, Avid, Apple) - as far as I can tell, they're still stuck in 32 bit mode programming mode - and will be for the forseeable future. That says something about the forward thinking of the programmers in Madison - 64bit is the future - take the efficiencies of Vegas and apply it to the 64 bit world, that is something worth looking at. Its support of XDCAM natively is also a major plus - especially with the slated release later this year of SONY's XDCAM EX. No third party plugins needed to work with XDCAM files, etc.

I concede that Vista is the worst example of an OS yet to be released by M$ - hence my continued use of XP Pro 64bit. My motherboard has support for up to 16GB of RAM - I've found virtually all XP Pro 64bit's hardware limitations and have to say, within those limitations, it's rock solid.

Anyone wanting input on what I have found with editing video on XP Pro 64bit, please feel free to ask.

Cliff,

I couldn't disagree with you more. When Final Cut Pro first came out with version 1, Mary Lynn and I started with it and spent more phone time than you can imagine trying to figure it out. There were no books or tutorials out then so it was pretty much self taught. Now, several years later, I think I could teach in a couple of hours what it took me the first year to learn. There is a plethora of material out now that can cut your learning curve by 90%. No program will be a Eureka moment the first time you view it, but once you learn the basics of any NLE, the rest comes very intuitively. Respectfully, it sounds as if you 1. haven't taken advantage of your FCP editing friends and what they could show you and 2. haven't looked into several of the many DVD tutorials and books that will bring an epiphany to your understanding of the program, and 3) you may have not been aware of such excellent websites that provide tutorials, reviews, articles and discussion forums such as we have on Wetpixel that you can learn greatly from and get answers to problems within a couple of hours. I would suggest you become a regular at www.kenstone.net, www.lafcpug.org and www.2-pop.com. All three of these sites are a major source of information. I am more of a regular on the kenstone discussion site than the other two but I use it not just to help others but to get answers for when I am stumped or am having a problem. They have certainly made me a better and more knowledgeable editor. The great thing I have to look forward to is that no matter how much I have learned, there is sooooo much more to learn. It's all part of the process.

I would suggest that you purchase any of the Ripple Training discs for FCP, Color Correction and Motion Graphics. These are all excellently produced by Steve Martin. Total Training also produces some excellent FCP discs. As for books, try the Peachpit Press's Apple Pro Training Series for FCP which, if you take the time to go through them, will provide just about everything you will ever need or want to know. These are tutorial books that come with media and project files on a supplied disc to work along with the book. The best 'reference' book for Final Cut is the Lisa Brenneis book 'Final Cut Pro for Mac OS'. It is not a tutorial book but is strictly a reference book and very valuable for when you forget how to do something or do not recall the use of the various tools. I'm in a fortunate position that I get all these books and discs gratis from the different companies so I have had years now of experience comparing the many products that come out, often before they are even released to the public. I think you will be happy with my recommendations.

There are a good number of excellent PC NLEs as well but there is a reason why so many of the major studios are using both Avid and Final Cut Pro, it is because they are as stable as they are and have huge depths to them that many NLEs do not. Of course you can run Final Cut Studio on a Mac Book Pro, who told you you couldn't? It is used for off line editing dallies by a great number of studios. Like with any NLE, the faster processor speeds will help and with an app like Motion, 2 gigs of ram is the minimum I would recommend. I have a non intel 2GHz DP G5 with 3.5 gigs of ram and a Radeon 9800 Pro card and Studio 2 screams for me. I have never once had a crash of the program. I couldn't ask for a better integrated workflow. Look at the new Adobe Suite for PCs. They have copied Apple's workflow integration because they wisely saw that it works. Even the notoriously slow After Effects renders within a satisfactory time.

Give it a chance Cliff.

Steve B)

Thanks for the post and your thoughts. Of course I am not sure I agree with it all, but as far as I am concerned if someone likes a software or platform, I am not going to try to tell them they are wrong. Different strokes for different folks. If people ask my opinion on Macs and FCP though I will tell them the good things. Anyway some thoughts.

I've worked with FCP and find that to do many things you have to jump through alot of hoops (read - inefficient workflow).

Not sure how many hoops there really are. For many things the workflow is quick and easy. Drags clips onto the timeline and done. Of course when you do other things more work is required. Which part did you fine inefficient?

I find the marketing hype around FCP plays upon peoples ideas that it will somehow make them more professional by using it.

Do not think it is hyped anymore than any other product. Keds made you run faster and jump higher and diamonds are forever. If you buy a Canon 5D you will be able to take proefessional pictures, and the Xti is not worth a darn. Etc. As you mentioned AVID and FCP are used extensively in professional settings. Of course there is some hype in this, but if you see where and how FCP is used there is no doubt many productions have used it.

You're locked into an application that for most, is unintuitive to work with. I found it not so much due to having worked with PPro for so long and the interface was similar. Unless one is editing long form projects, I find FCP bloated overkill, and yet up until PPro CS3, you either edited in AVID (I've heard it termed AVOID) or FCP - that was it. Editing long form in Vegas is simple and straighforward - ask shooters here like Nick Hope - a regular Vegas user both here and on the Vegas Forums (Hi Nick)

I use FCP all the time for short items and do not find it bloated overkill at all. In a matter of minutes things are done. In what way is it bloated overkill? I may be too close to the application, but I also know many others who have picked it up and start working and editing quickly. An hour or so or less. And none of them are what you would call high end editor or computer geek types.

Both FCP and Avid are resource intensive apps and I have read and experienced myself numerous crashes of both apps on the MAC platform. Mac hardware is overpriced. One can field edit on a standard Dell Laptop with dual core processors and 2GB of RAM and purchase Vegas 7 and still spend less than a Macbook Pro. And then one has to pay out the nose for the FCP Suite because that is the only way to obtain it. Again, no freedom of choice.

People claim Mac is overpriced. And to some degree it is when compared to PCs. Since the Intel switch the price differential is alot less when comparing simarily spec'd out machines. I have carried FInal Cut Pro and edited on everything from an iBook, to a tiBook and a MacBook Pro - of course depending on the version of FCP. (Also have my towers). Always has been stable and reliable. If you were experiencing "numerous" crashes it sounds like something was wrong outside of FCP. You may have had things like bad RAM or other things happening. Not to say there is not a periodic hiccup, but overall it is very stable.

SONY Vegas just works. Once you get use to it's workflow, editing becomes fast and intuitive.

As you said, once you get used to its workflow editing is fast and intuitive. If you are not used to its workflow than it is not fast and intuitive? This is any software, no?

Used in conjunction with Cinescore and Sound Forge, these three apps do more for me than any other set of apps out there. Since I ascribe to the Solo VJ Paradigm - where one conceives, shoots, is on camera talent, narrates, edits and renders out to multiple sources - efficiency is key.

Apple actually has this same efficiency on two levels – the iApps (Garageband, iMovie, iDVD etc.) and the high end Apps, Final Cut Studio – Final Cut, Soundtrack, Livetype, Motion, DVD SP and now Color. And all do exactly the same thing. I use both the iApps and Studio all the time

I don't work in AE, and edit using cuts and dissolves 99.9% of the time. Vegas' support for multiple video formats on the same timeline, nested projects, etc. works very well.

FCP 2 also has now implemented multiple video formats on the same timeline. Have not put it through all of its paces yet, so cannot comment fully on that aspect other than the fact that for the majority of the work I do multiple formats are not a huge deal. I actually have something where I am going to work through a multiple format thing to see how it works. That way I can see how it stacks up to Wagsy and Edius J

FCP and iMovie to do cuts and dissolves are extremely easy though to use.

Is it perfect? No. .

And neither is FCP

But I think it comes much closer than any other offerings for my style of shooting (Freelance Video Journalism)

And that is the key, it works for you so therefore it is fine. I do a lot of the same thing, quick small projects and FCP and the iApps work for me. The most difficult part of any project is figuring out what I want, not getting it done. And the apps have never been a barrier J

- and its hardware requirements are more liberal and not hardware dependent - you don't need a dedicated video card to run Vegas on a laptop (You can't run FCP on a macbook - no dedicated video card). ) Vegas runs on AMD or Intel, Single, Dual or Quad core, and will utilize all cores as high as 99% utilization - I haven't seen any of the other current apps do that. It runs on Win2K (DV only), XP Pro 32 and 64bit and actually sees DVD burners on XP 64 bit which PPro nor Encore will do. You can't even install Avid on XP 64 bit - very backward thinking. The Vegas user community is some of the friendliest and helpful out there.

Fair enough to some degree. There is always some requirement somewhere. The iApps will run on any Mac (again depending on which version of the iApps) You cannot expect software released today to run on a machine released 5 years ago (though Macs are pretty good with things like that. My tower is 3 years old or so and runs the new FCP Studio. Not as fast as the new machines, but not bad. The FCP itself has been a pleasure. How many PCs from 3 years ago can run Vista? It is true that you cannot run the Studio on the MacBook (though some people installed it) but then again you can run all the iApps, which will also do what it sounds like you do fairly easily. As to the Windows issues, not sure I can comment on Avid and the rest. The Apple community are very nice also

I was a vocal Adobe evangelist, until I kept running into horridly long renders and out of memory error messages (Running either XP Pro 32 bit or XP 64 bit with 4GB RAM with AMD Dual core processor). I have yet to experience any major issues with Vegas.

Yeah Adobe has had some issues from time to time. I cannot live without Photoshop though J And it has been solid (Photoshop) fortunately for me. Never got too jammed up with the other apps on the PCs, other than the fact that Windows always gives me a lot more grief than Mac OS in general. And Tiger for the most part is stable.

The only gripe I've heard is that Vegas doesn't support 10 bit color space, but since no one utilizes it that I know of, I think it's a moot point until one is needing 10bit color space for editing. None of the current crop of video cams most are using (miniDV or HDV) even shoot in that color space.

A native 64 bit version of Vegas is slated for release late this year - that is a major coup. The "A Team" (Adobe, Avid, Apple) - as far as I can tell, they're still stuck in 32 bit mode programming mode - and will be for the forseeable future. That says something about the forward thinking of the programmers in Madison - 64bit is the future - take the efficiencies of Vegas and apply it to the 64 bit world, that is something worth looking at. Its support of XDCAM natively is also a major plus - especially with the slated release later this year of SONY's XDCAM EX. No third party plugins needed to work with XDCAM files, etc.

I think the 64 Bit issue falls into the same category as the 10-bit issue. Cool concept but is it really THAT necessary. Of course it is going to be good when it comes (Leopard in October on the Mac). But for many things, especially basic editing and dissolves, it is not a killer.

I concede that Vista is the worst example of an OS yet to be released by M$ - hence my continued use of XP Pro 64bit. My motherboard has support for up to 16GB of RAM - I've found virtually all XP Pro 64bit's hardware limitations and have to say, within those limitations, it's rock solid.

I never thought they could top (lower?) from ME but that is what people seem to think.

Anyone wanting input on what I have found with editing video on XP Pro 64bit, please feel free to ask.

When it is all said and done, I have heard good things about Vegas, but I do love my Macs and FCP. Not that it does not have issues, it always does. When you work with things long enough, be it a computer, a camera or anything else, I think each one of us would find something to tweak, change or improve.

I think the best thing to do is find ourselves diving together at the same time and we will both have our laptops. You show me the Vegas thing and I will show you the other side. Of course all of these are secondary to the diving and the beers after. And when it is all said and done you will continue to support Vegas and I will support FCP so we will have to do another trip to continue the argument Hmmm, maybe Wetpixel should sponsor these trips as the great PC/Mac editing debate. Eric? Drew? Wagsy?

Well put Real Drew....your experiences with the stability of the platform parallels my own. As to Macs being expensive...yep they are. As for Final Cut Studio being expensive....just compare to the new Adobe Suite and they are both about the same. As an educator, however, I was able to get the full Studio Academic version for about 699.00, an upgrade version I believe costs 499. Don't think Adobe offers similar deals but I could be wrong there. Would love to conduct a FCP seminar on a Wetpixel trip. I will be conducting one in the Cocos, Costa Rica next summer, Aug. 08

Steve B)

Cliff,

I couldn't disagree with you more. When Final Cut Pro first came out with version 1, Mary Lynn and I started with it and spent more phone time than you can imagine trying to figure it out. There were no books or tutorials out then so it was pretty much self taught. Now, several years later, I think I could teach in a couple of hours what it took me the first year to learn. There is a plethora of material out now that can cut your learning curve by 90%. No program will be a Eureka moment the first time you view it, but once you learn the basics of any NLE, the rest comes very intuitively. Respectfully, it sounds as if you 1. haven't taken advantage of your FCP editing friends and what they could show you and 2. haven't looked into several of the many DVD tutorials and books that will bring an epiphany to your understanding of the program, and 3) you may have not been aware of such excellent websites that provide tutorials, reviews, articles and discussion forums such as we have on Wetpixel that you can learn greatly from and get answers to problems within a couple of hours. I would suggest you become a regular at www.kenstone.net, www.lafcpug.org and www.2-pop.com. All three of these sites are a major source of information. I am more of a regular on the kenstone discussion site than the other two but I use it not just to help others but to get answers for when I am stumped or am having a problem. They have certainly made me a better and more knowledgeable editor. The great thing I have to look forward to is that no matter how much I have learned, there is sooooo much more to learn. It's all part of the process.

I would suggest that you purchase any of the Ripple Training discs for FCP, Color Correction and Motion Graphics. These are all excellently produced by Steve Martin. Total Training also produces some excellent FCP discs. As for books, try the Peachpit Press's Apple Pro Training Series for FCP which, if you take the time to go through them, will provide just about everything you will ever need or want to know. These are tutorial books that come with media and project files on a supplied disc to work along with the book. The best 'reference' book for Final Cut is the Lisa Brenneis book 'Final Cut Pro for Mac OS'. It is not a tutorial book but is strictly a reference book and very valuable for when you forget how to do something or do not recall the use of the various tools. I'm in a fortunate position that I get all these books and discs gratis from the different companies so I have had years now of experience comparing the many products that come out, often before they are even released to the public. I think you will be happy with my recommendations.

There are a good number of excellent PC NLEs as well but there is a reason why so many of the major studios are using both Avid and Final Cut Pro, it is because they are as stable as they are and have huge depths to them that many NLEs do not. Of course you can run Final Cut Studio on a Mac Book Pro, who told you you couldn't? It is used for off line editing dallies by a great number of studios. Like with any NLE, the faster processor speeds will help and with an app like Motion, 2 gigs of ram is the minimum I would recommend. I have a non intel 2GHz DP G5 with 3.5 gigs of ram and a Radeon 9800 Pro card and Studio 2 screams for me. I have never once had a crash of the program. I couldn't ask for a better integrated workflow. Look at the new Adobe Suite for PCs. They have copied Apple's workflow integration because they wisely saw that it works. Even the notoriously slow After Effects renders within a satisfactory time.

 

Give it a chance Cliff.

Steve B)

I wanted to hold off responding until I found some accurate information that puts my response in perspective:

I'm going to quote Mike Jones from the DMN forums as he states the position of Vegas -vs- FCP very well

FCP is an old-fashioned editor that fits with a large budget traditional Hollywood workflow; FCP doesn't have good audio tools because it presumes that audio work is going to be done elsewhere by the sound designer (in pro-tools or the like). FCP doesn't have good or complex compositing tools because it similarly presumes you're going to do that job elsewhere. FCP is very format inflexible, doesn't mix resolutions very well at all on the timeline (not without taking a serious hit on real-time performance and not a patch on the extremely efficient performance of Vegas in this regard) because it expects that you're working in a traditional project environment where all your footage is garnered from a singular source acquisition format (ie film, digibeta an so on). But of course traditional project workflow and especially Hollywood large budget production almost never needs to mix resolutions; to coexist HD and SD or SD and web res or use a wide variety of codecs. This is a big area where FCP is highly inflexible and quite archaic in its approach but its also an area that its high-budget users, mush adored by your friend, ill never need... It can well be argued that all the things on the list that Vegas has that FCP doesn't are all things that traditional editors are probably never going to want or use anyway, because the traditional editor, and as such the traditional editing system, functions very much as a cog in a bigger machine not as the holistic machine itself.

 

This leads to the second part, the fact that FCP has taken some of the mantle away from Avid being used in large budget film production. Vegas is certainly not used for this. And the reason is not because FCP is 'better' but because the two tools are conceptually designed for very different ways of working. FCP is an extremely capable off-line tool with frame/socket matchback for celluloid film - in the form of CinemaTools. Vegas is not an off-line tool and doesn't have the features for working with film because it was never intended to do that kind of work. Vegas is purely a digital production and finishing tool designed to cover all aspects of a digital production: video, audio, compositing - SDI, HDV,DV, Streaming media with complete format, resolution and codec independence. FCP is not a finishing tool, its an editing system; a very good one but a system always really designed to be one part of a bigger chain of production tools. The features FCP has for audio and for composting are very rudimentary and seemingly are there to satisfy the lower budget users of FCP. (the irony is that whilst FCP is used for some high-budget Hollywood films shot on celluloid the overwhelming majority of its users are working with DV and HDV but that's not how the tool is marketed Apple is exceedingly good at selling the 'dream' of high-budget even though the bulk of their users are low-budget.

 

So the question really isnt about which is 'better' it's about what methodology you're engaging? FCP gets used to some (growing) extent in Hollywood on big budget films because its a strong off-line tool with with superb film matchback options and increasingly good media management with the XSAN storage system.

 

Vegas by contrast is designed to be an all-digital on-line finishing system - equally powerful video, audio and compositing capabilities. Vegas is much more flexible and much more well rounded than FCP as evidenced by the list but that list will never have any impact on a wanker like you're talking to because they're working in a very old-school traditional workflow environment that is still the dominant form; a system whereby editing is a discrete phase seperate and apart form other areas of post - sound, effects, titles, grading, filters etc...

 

I would argue strongly that in many ways Vegas is the future of large proportion of media production and a more advanced and forward thinking tool. But it is one that engages a very different sensibility to production, a much more utilitarian, and unified approach. And this is an approach that doesn't fit or mesh into a traditional and well established Hollywood workflow of discrete production tools for discrete production phases.

 

To put all this more simply. if I was working right now on a 35mm feature film where I was the editor and and my responsibilities were solely the sequence of the footage 9not the audio mix, not the colour grade, not the titles, compositing or effects, but just the edit) then I would use FCP in a heart beat and would certainly choose it (and have done) over Avid any day of the week. very smooth sequencing and editing, very efficient management of sequences, good real-time performance with the right hardware so long as all my source material is uniform which it would be from a telecined/digital scan of the 35mm print.

 

But if I were working (as I am right now) on, say, a documentary project where my source footage is an ecclectic combination of Uncompressed HD, HDV, SD widescreen, SD 4:3 and Youtube video at 320x240; where I'm also doing the sound mix and the compositing (this project has 9 layers of video much of it as multi-frame and pic-in-pic) and my output is multi-platform - broadcast digibeta, DVD, web-stream and mobile device (including 3g); then Vegas is by far the better tool being much more well-rounded and feature rich able to deal with all those elements in a single unified system.

 

The difference between FCP and Vegas is really a divide between an old-style (but still dominant) segmented and compartmentalised approach to post-production - and a more unified, flexible and holistic approach. The choice of which conceptual approach is better totally depends on the project.

 

All my work these days demands a high degree flexibility and a lot of unorthodox approaches along with a centralised production model where I don't need to leave or change applications but can keep an entire production within the one tool for start to finish. And Vegas is in a better position to offer that by some degree by comparison to FCP.

 

But this really isnt a criticism of FCP (which i have used for many years, even before Apple bought it from Macromedia and renamed it from KEYGRIP) Its simply the recognition that this is not the type of work that FCP was designed to do or indeed is really capable of doing to the same degree as more holistic app like Vegas. FCP is really quite old-fashioned in its approach (an this is not necasarilly a bad thing, it hits FCP's target market right on the head, works very well and is very successful - Avid are generally concerned at losing the market they once owned). BUT... I would argue that more and more in the future production of all kinds is going to be better served by a flexible, scalable, unified, holistic approach such as Vegas offers, than the traditional compartmentalised, production chain approach exemplified by FCP and Avid.

 

All that said, I would bet my house that your friend with his bizarre and vehrment brand loyalty has Never used Vegas or indeed probably never used anything other than Avid (and lets face it FCP is simply a clone of Avid - just a bit more user friendly and efficient but otherwise with an identical workflow and methodology) By proxy he has likewise probably never needed or considered any other approach to editing outside of a traditional editors role. there's no problem with that except that it makes his opinions on who makes a good editor, what makes good editing and a good editing system somewhat ill-informed.

 

I hope that clarifies a few things and offers a perspective

 

Mike Jones

Writer, Media Artist, Digital Wrangler -

www.luciferjones.org

blogs.digitalmediaonlineinc.com/digitalbasin

www.baddadproductions.net

www.shvl.org

From my perspective, I believe that Vegas gives a user the opportunity to explore HOW they want to work.

I'll add some downsides to the Sony software (Vegas and Platinum): I don't want to just edit my HD footage, but I want to put it on a disk, and so far as I have been able to discover, Sony simply doesn't make a product yet that will burn a HD disk (whether HD-DVD or AVCHD). To me that is a massive negative.

Try this

Go and download the 30 day trail of EDIUS.

Suck in the HDV and have EDIUS convert it to it's special 1440/1080 Canopus HQ codec in real time as it comes in. You will find adding colour correction with Prem Pro and Aspect HD can cause banding in some underwater shots. Canopus does not cause this plus it encodes out m2t files not only better but faster than Prem Pro / Aspect HD. I'm still running just a 3 GIG PC but if you have something faster it will perform even better.

Add colour correction, effects, titles or slow mow in realtime and while you are at it bring in some normal PAL or NTSC DV 4.3 or 16.9 or even now AVCHD and mix with it still in real time if you are going got make a normal DVD's. Leave out the DV stuff if making HD ones.

Encode it out to whatever with the built in Procoder Express....very easy...

To make normal DVD's go and try DVDlab Pro www.mediachance.com. It's a very powerful and easy DVD authoring program that does not hold your hand. If you want you can even write your own custom commands all still to DVD specs. Burn with the same program (I have even burnt master DVD-r's for glass replication with it's built in burner) or use Swift Disk. Nero takes over your computer so beware, it use to be good a few years ago but they put too much rubbish on it now days.

You can also encode out files to make Mini HD DVD's / Blurays on normal DVD-r disks but you will need some HD DVD / Bluray software to make them with.

Information on making HD DVD's here

Hope that helps and thats why I luv PC's so many options.......

There is a nasty bug in Vegas 7 that can affect HDV users. Haven't seen it myself but it needs fixing a.s.a.p.

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